A 20-year-old American YouTuber and digital star named ShowSpeed just live-streamed hourslong tour of Chinese locations, including Beijing and Shanghai, to show his almost 40 million viewers the locations.
IShowSpeed, whose true name is Darren Jason Watkins Jr., admired friendly locals, flawless streets, and the high-speed Wi-Fi on the train, and Chinese fans heckled him for selfies on the Great Wall during the March activities.
Beijing’s state media seized the spotlight, with one Foreign blog claiming that the American apex had “eliminated all American misinformation about China” in the eye of a new era.
This analysis is confirmed by IShowSpeed’s YouTube site.
One leading comment reads,” China is therefore underappreciated wtf.” Another person writes,” I realized how foolish my earlier sights on China were after watching this picture.”
Such feedback don’t provide any information. However, as someone who studies the impact of Chinese soft strength, I find the sight of a young American burning China’s picture to Western audiences to be incredibly important.
It provides an illustration of how smooth energy standards have been altered in recent years, and how China appears to be having some success appealing to the world’s children.
blending politicians and music
Soft power refers to a nation’s capacity to shape people’s preferences through society, values, and diplomatic relations by influencing others through attraction rather than coercion. The phrase was coined by political professor Joseph Nye to describe how nations job authority by imposing demands on others through military or economic stress.
US sweet energy didn’t have to make that much of itself throughout the Cold War and into the 21st century. It exploded from surge boxes after being broadcast on MTV and sported fabric. Rock music crossed the Iron Curtain when politics don’t, with painters like Madonna and Bruce Springsteen reaching Russian children more efficiently than any adviser.
And in China, Michael Jackson gained a following also before McDonald’s or Hollywood films, bringing about a beautiful, open America that so many people desired.
American society wasn’t really leisure to some growing up in China in the 1990s; it was persuasion, aspiration, and even subversion.
The blockbusters from Beijing
The US is still, of course, a cultural powerhouse, and American actors and musicians are still recognizable all over the world. However, there are indications that China is attempting to erode that position.
Take the movie. Chinese movies were once viewed as niche films in other countries. An animated Chinese feature film called” Ne Zha 2” broke box office records in January 2025. A stunning retelling of a mythic boy-god’s story, the film has grossed an astonishing US$$ 2 billion worldwide, outperforming many Hollywood studios.
It is now the highest-grossing animated film of all time, and it was produced by a Chinese studio with hundreds of local animators.
Beijing made a quick decision to incorporate” Ne Zha 2″ as a representation of China’s creative rise and” soft power moment” in terms of culture. The success of the movie was praised by state media as evidence that Chinese folklore and artistry can captivate audiences around the world just as effectively as Marvel superheroes.
” Ne Zha 2″ isn’t a one-off. The Beijing-based Wanda Films ‘” Detective Chinatown 1900,” which was released in January, is the year’s third-highest-grossing film to date.
Hollywood, which was once confident in its cultural monopoly, now faces a massive new rival on the global stage, one supported by 1.4 billion people and a government determined to overthrow Western pop culture dominance. Additionally, there are some international audiences. Ne Zha 2 also had a positive impact when it first aired in the US.
Gamers travel to the east in search of adventure.
Additionally, it includes non-profits.
Video games have been a stronghold in American and Japanese culture for decades. Black Myth: Wukong, a Chinese-developed game that was created by a Hangzhou studio, has become popular worldwide.
When its first gameplay trailers for Black Myth: Wukong first appeared in 2020, they were so popular that they were immediately followed along with its promising AAA-level graphics and action that drew inspiration from China’s well-known” Journey to the West” tale.
Skeptics questioned whether the finished product could quite possibly compete with the likes of the well-known series God of War or the Elden Ring in George R. R. Martin’s style. But those doubts vanished when the game finally debuted in 2024. In the summer of 2024, Black Myth: Wukong debuted to a great deal of worldwide support, instantly claiming a spot alongside the biggest Western franchises.
It is China’s first true blockbuster video game, and it is evidence that the nation can produce world-class entertainment, according to critics all over the world.
It’s about narrative power for the Chinese state, according to me, not just about snagging titles in China’s gaming industry.
Instead of, say, a Marvel superhero or a Tolkien epic, millions of young people around the world subtly shift the cultural center of gravity eastward as they spend 30 or 40 hours a week immerse in Sun Wukong’s adventures.
It suggests that Chinese myths are evolving to appeal to people around the world as cool as Western ones. And that is soft power.
Small screen, big impact
In the meantime, another Chinese export has deeply ingrained itself into global culture on the smaller screens we carry in our pockets: TikTok.
TikTok has over 1.6 billion monthly users in over 160 countries as of 2025.
TikTok’s cultural reach is even more impressive. The app’s algorithm has helped songs by musicians from South Korea or Nigeria reach the top of the global charts, and it has inspired grandmothers in Italy to try Mexican recipes from grandmothers in Italy who were previously featured on a popular Chinese app. Teenagers in Kansas are learning Indonesian dance moves.
In essence, TikTok has created a brand-new transnational pop culture commons, one that is owned by a Beijing-based business. Yes, users all create the content on TikTok, not dictated by the Chinese government, but the platform’s very existence is a testament to Chinese tech entrepreneurship and global ambition.
Every second spent scrolling TikTok by Western youths is a moment they are residing in a cultural sphere created by China. It’s no wonder the US government is worried about TikTok’s influence because it’s about cultural security more than just data security.
Since outright banning it has proven to be politically challenging, TikTok has continued to steadily firmly established itself as a staple of global youth culture.
Blockbuster movies, popular video games, and viral apps all feature a larger truth: China is rapidly gaining soft power as America runs the risk of letting its own erode. China expands its influence through the Belt and Road Initiative and development loans at a time when the US reduces foreign aid.
And while the US enacts visa restrictions for students and scientists, China’s universities, some of which are now in the top 20 on the world, are becoming more appealing.
Can the US maintain its cultural diversity?
It is notoriously difficult to assess the impact of soft power because most countries that use it play a very long game.
Beijing’s push for soft power is not guaranteed to succeed everywhere. Many societies continue to doubt Beijing’s intentions, and its authoritarian system limits the appeal of its political model in democratic societies.
However, there are obvious indications that younger generations are buying into China’s cultural exports.
The US once almost automatically set the pace for global culture. However, as China invests a lot in its creative industries and digital platforms, it is increasingly shaping the narrative and themes for a growing global audience.
The question is no longer whether China has the ability to compete for soft power power, but whether America has a strategy to hold its ground.
Shaoyu Yuan is a research scientist at Rutgers University – Newark’s Division of Global Affairs.
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the text of the article.